Skip to main content

Program Overview

The Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training Program is a 2-year multidisciplinary program administered and taught by a large and diverse faculty.  While most of the training experiences are in Chapel Hill, fellows spend time at the UNC Child Outpatient Program in Raleigh, NC, as well as a number of community psychiatry sites throughout the state. 

We ensure that trainees acquire a sound knowledge of human development, and considerable emphasis is placed on psychodynamic principles. Our fellows learn to effectively integrate the biological, psychological, and social aspects of child and adolescent psychiatric theory and practice, including: 

  • Psychotherapy 
  • Psychopharmacology 
  • Group therapy 
  • Family therapy 
  • Crisis/emergency 
  • Consult-liaison 

Every fellow who completes our program is competent in the development, assessment, and prevention psychopathology, and fully utilizes a full array of current child and adolescent psychiatric interventions from infancy through adulthood.  Also, for those who wish, we offer additional training in neuropsychiatry and research, and psychoanalytical training is available through the Psychoanalytic Institute of the Carolinas. 

First Year

The first year of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Program training, closely supervised by attending physicians and faculty educators, gives the fellow the skills needed to provide thorough evaluations of the child, their family, and their environment. This targeted focus leads to an in-depth social, biological, psychological, and psychodynamic understanding of the child. 

During the first year, each fellow spends approximately 9 months half-time working on child and adolescent inpatient units and 3 months part-time on the child and adolescent consult liaison service providing consultation to patients in the N.C Children’s Hospital. Fellows also work with both children and parents in various outpatient settings, gaining experience in diagnosis and exposure to a wide variety of therapeutic modalities.  All residents carry several long-term psychotherapy cases and have at least 2 hours weekly of individual supervision of their outpatient work. Additional experiences include exposure to work in pediatric neurology, community psychiatry, crisis management and multiple other systems of care.  

Second Year

In addition to continuing with outpatient work begun in the first year, during the second year of training, our fellows rotate through a number of services and elective experiences: 

  • TEACCH Program for children with autism spectrum disorder 
  • Developmental neuropsychiatry clinic  
  • Pre-school/school consult-liaison 
  • Additional experiences in a variety of electives 
Sample Elective Opportunities
Research Eating Disorders
Autism Neuropsychiatry
Long-term Adolescent Hospitalization School Consultation
Consult-Liaison Activities Community Mental Health

By the end of the second year, fellows will demonstrate proficiency in six core competencies: 

  • Medical knowledge/clinical science 
  • Interpersonal skills and communication 
  • Patient care 
  • Practice-based learning and improvement 
  • Professionalism and ethical behavior 
  • System-based care 

Call Responsibilities 

Night call is kept at a minimum. Fellows rotate weekly to provide back-up emergency consultation from home to General Psychiatry residents, though this call is infrequent and light. Each Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellow will round approximately every tenth weekend with the inpatient Child or Adolescent Psychiatry Attending, seeing inpatients on the child, adolescent and eating disorders units. 

Seminars 

Fellows are expected to attend and participate in numerous weekly didactic experiences throughout both years.  These include a multidisciplinary diagnostic conference, a continuing case conference, a selected topics and readings seminar, and CORE child seminar series focusing on normal development, pathology, and treatment. In addition, there are various didactic experiences on individual rotations. 

Teaching 

In addition to being students, we also train fellows to be teachers.  Second year fellows are expected to function for a period of time as the chief resident and provide administrative and educational leadership.  Trainees are actively involved in teaching fellow general psychiatry residents and medical students, and are afforded an opportunity to help supervise junior residents who are providing psychotherapy to children. 

Contact 

If you have any questions about the UNC Psychiatry Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship, please do not hesitate to contact Kim Dillman, Residency Coordinator, at kimberly_dillman@med.unc.edu or by phone at (984) 974-3881.